Beliefs
by IsobelTheroux
Summary: Misa Amane believed in God once. But that was a time before her innocence had been stolen.


Okay so I really don't now anything about religion in Japan and I've always believed Misa to be only half Japanese anyway, so I'm just gonna say here that her family is Christian or something along those lines. Also I totally just made up her sister's name, so there you go. Got it? Okay, good :D

Misa Amane believed in God.

It was easy to, of course. Growing up she had a wonderful childhood. Two loving parents, a slightly annoying, but fun older sister, Sayaka. Yes, things weren't perfect, but Misa wouldn't have traded it for anything.

When Misa was a child, her mother would sing to her, her pretty, high voice filling the house. She would sing beautiful songs, full of love and praise for God. Misa would sit on a stool in the kitchen, smiling cheerfully as she listened to her mother's voice, thinking that if her life went this way forever, she would always be happy.

Every Sunday her parents would take Misa and her sister to worship in a small church not far from their home. Misa would sit in the pew next to her mother, listening to the Preacher talk of Heaven and Hell, of angels and demons and of course, of God.

Misa didn't entirely understand the concept of God, someone who was always watching, who somehow always knew if you were sinning or not. To Misa's childlike mind he sounded a bit like Santa Claus, only more terrifying. But her parents believed in Him, and that was enough for her to decide that must mean He was real.

So, yes, Misa believed in God. That is until one summer night, not long after her eighteenth birthday an intruder broke into her home. It was then, walking slowly into her house, heart pounding, eyes widening at the sight of her parents, their blood forming in large, dark pools around their still forms, that Misa decided she didn't believe in God anymore.

How could she? How could she believe in anyone that would be cruel enough to let good, faithful people like her parents be killed so brutally?

It only got worse after that. Police incompetency had ruined crucial evidence at the crime scene, making it difficult to get a conviction. The murderer walked away with nothing more than a slight inconvenience in his life. According to the courts, he was innocent.

Misa knew better. She wanted nothing more than to go into his home, to hurt him the same way he had hurt her family, the way he had hurt her. But Misa wasn't stupid, she knew that wouldn't be justice, not the kind she needed. She wouldn't dirty her hands for the likes of him.

It became more and more apparent to Misa that the entire justice system was flawed. Allowing a murder like him to escape just so he could commit the same atrocities on other innocent families later? She realized her faith in everything good was crumbling; she desperately wanted something to hold on to, something good, but all the world seemed to offer was more and more horror.

Her sister, Sayaka , was no help. Since the trial she had fallen into the habit of drinking constantly. Just one more night, she would tell Misa, just one more drink.

That was before she left. A note was the only goodbye she left Misa with, folded on Sayaka's pillow.

The stares of everyone got to her, Sayaka wrote, and she couldn't look at Misa anymore without being reminded of their mother. The two had always looked alike, but now it was just a painful reminder of what had happened.

Misa stared at the note night after night, her tears falling on the thin paper and making the ink run. With her sister gone there was no one to talk to, no one to confide in. She knew what her sister had meant by everyone staring at her. While Misa was used to it, she was a beautiful girl after all, this was different. Everyone seemed to know what had happened, and the sympathetic, pitying looks killed her.

She was plagued by nightmares of her parents final moments, of them pleading with the murderer or begging God to save them. Other nights, they would be pleading to Misa herself, why weren't you here? Why didn't you save us? Why didn't you die with us? What do you have to live for anymore?

What did she have to live for, she wondered on more than one occasion, a razor blade dangling loosely from her fingers, tears streaming down her face. It became a game she played with herself, how close could she bring the blade before she stopped?

The razor got closer and closer over the weeks, eventually gliding over her skin, close enough that she felt it, but not enough to draw blood. She wondered why she couldn't seem to do it, couldn't cut herself and make the blood flow like she wanted. She wanted to be like her parents, but more than anything she wanted them to be like her. Alive and real, not just whispered words in her head or monstrous ghosts in her dreams.

And then one day, a day like any other, a day with the same dangerous game being played, the news came.

Her parents murderer had died. A heart attack, the papers said, just like all of Kira's other "victims."

Misa had heard of Kira, of course. Who hadn't? And in the deepest, darkest part of her heart she had wished and wished. Wished more than anything that Kira would kill her parents murderer. That one day that horrible, vile man's heart would seize up, that he would feel it, the horrible fear, that knowledge that he was dying. And then his corrupted heart would simply cease to beat.

And just like a dream come true, it had happened.

Justice had been served and Misa Amane realized she believed in God again.


End file.
